Twogether
by kaitothegreat
Summary: 3: Shinichi would never read his letters twice. / A series of random one shots centered around Shinichi and Ran.
1. Red

1: Ran guessed Shinichi's favourite colour on the first try.

 _Summary changes along with each respective chapter._

* * *

It was a nice Sunday afternoon, supposedly a perfect day for Shinichi to finish his _The Sign of the Four_ for the 56th times. But here he was, standing in the middle of an art and craft store with all sorts of fancy ribbons and papers that the detective had no interest in.

He tried to hide a yawn when Ran approached him with two pieces of paper, each in both of her hand.

"Which is nicer? The green or the yellow one?"

"Uh, I guess the green one?"

"Why?"

"It's more pleasing to the eye."

He watched Ran's little brows furrowed when she turned to inspect the green paper, but her eyes instantly softened once her head turned towards the yellow one. Through those little gestures, Shinichi already knew what Ran was thinking, but he had no idea why she would ask him for his opinion if she got the answers herself. This was something Shinichi could never figure out in his life, even when this sort of incident happened to him more than a thousand times. Not just with Ran, his mother gave him tons of headaches for questions like this too.

"But the yellow looks not bad." He prompted. "It's bright and lively."

"You think so too?" She perked up.

"Yeah."

"I'll get the yellow one then!"

After paying for the crafts Ran bought for the card she wanted to make for Sonoko, they departed out of the shop and she suggested to drop by a coffeehouse to get a drink. Shinichi was more than glad to agree to the plan. He needed to rest his sore legs. All the standing and waiting was ironically tougher than his soccer training.

Surprisingly, the coffeehouse wasn't as crowded like Shinichi thought it would be. But he had nothing to complain. They purchased their drinks and settled at the best corner they could find, a booth meant for two.

It was hard to find silence between them when he was such a nerd for Sherlock Holmes and Ran was a lively and chatty person whenever there was a right topic to talk about. As their chatters continued and their drinks turned cold, Shinichi had no idea how their conversation lead Ran to ask what his favourite colour was.

He never really considered it before. Colour, to Shinichi, was just a property possessed by an object, which produced different sensations on the eye due to the way it reflected or emitted light. However, he remembered Sherlock Holmes's favourite colour was blue, although he had forgotten where the source came from. Maybe he should search for it among his books again.

"I know!"

His eyes shot to Ran's outburst. She was smiling so brightly that he almost cringed at the intensity of her radiance.

"Your favourite colour is red, right?"

He blinked.

"Y-Yeah." He nodded dumbly. "Red."

"So I was right!" Ran clasped her hand and giggled. "It seemed our favourite colour is the same."

When Shinichi reached home after sending Ran back, he entered the silent hall and stopped when he passed by a bowl of artificial fruits that his mom bought for decoration purpose. His eyes set upon the apple, and for some odd reason, it looked very different from how it was before he went out to meet Ran.

He shook his head, dismissing his foolish thoughts and approached the kitchen to get a glass of water.

After he quenched his thirst, he headed to the library, trying to ignore the blaring colour of red that was so striking to his eyes whenever he passed by an item consisting of the colour. He approached the tall shelves once he entered the room and told himself to focus on finding the book that mentioned Sherlock Holmes's favourite colour, while inwardly hoping his sudden obsession with red would go away.

Shinichi then pulled the first book he saw off the shelf, revealing the title _A Study in Scarlet,_ the cover printed in red.

He sighed.

It took his dense head a while to realize it wasn't red he had fell in love with. It was the bright smile, her excitement and the cute twinkle in Ran's eyes when she guessed his favourite colour that made him decide he loved red. Red didn't mean anything to him, but Ran did.

For the longest time, even until now, Shinichi hadn't seen red the same ever since.

But he didn't mind. In fact, he liked it that way.


	2. Crybaby

2: She was simply Mouri Ran, the cry baby Shinichi always mocked about.

* * *

Ran was the strongest member of the Karate team. Black belt. Body made of steel. Fast and Lethal. If she could shoot laser beams out of her eyes, she'll be a female version of Superman. Well, technically close enough. Her glares, Shinichi once casually mentioned before getting his face punched, were horrific enough to send people running in another direction.

But she wasn't perfect like a hero.

Her first loss happened in her final year of middle school. It was a split second of inaccurate calculation and a wrong choice of move that sent her opponent to the final round while she left the mat, defeated by her own mistake.

Everyone comforted her, but she gave a strong smile and told them she was fine. It was just a loss.

Her first loss.

Still in her Karate uniform, she stealthily exited the sports hall and sat on the steps outside the building without anyone's knowledge. It was a quiet place despite how expose she was to the public, but no one she knew would find her here since the finals would start in a minute and everyone should be focused on it. She could picture it being intense, fierce and-

One of them could have been her.

"You're obstructing the way, you know."

Ran turned towards the voice behind her and pouted at the sight of her childhood friend descending the steps with both hands in his pockets, acting all cool even though he really was.

"Why are you here?" She asked, her sour mood tilted a little towards curious.

"I've came to watch your match."

Of course she knew that. She'd seen him at the stand, even though she already told him there wasn't a need for him to come since he was such a _busy and popular_ detective after all. "I mean, why are you _here?_ The final round is about to start."

"Like I said, I came to watch _your_ match." Shinichi slumped onto the steps next to hers.

Ran hugged her knees tighter together and turned away. She would have blurted out a sarcastic apology of not being able to _entertain_ him until the end of the competition, but she really couldn't when her throat had tightened to the point that her voice would definitely break and give away how remorse she was feeling right now.

"Then why are you here?" He asked back.

She swallowed hard and took a deep breath, trying to regain some bit of her composure before she spoke. "I want to be alone."

"Everyone is looking for you."

Her eyes widened at him. "You didn't tell them where I am, right?"

"They assumed you're inside the building."

"Oh yeah." She almost rolled her eyes. "Smart and amazing Sherlock Holmes guessed it all."

He smirked. That smug grin of his usually stayed for more than a second, but it died down as fast as it appeared. In replacement, his brows furrowed together as he continued to stare at her. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah."

"You don't have to lie to me."

"I'm not lying." Ran retorted, her trembling hands curled into a fist. "I'm _trying_ to be alright. I can't let everyone on the team to be disappointed along with me. I'm their captain, a role model they look up to."

"But I'm not them." He said, as if it couldn't be any obvious enough. "I'm your friend."

Even though she knew that more than anyone else in the world, it took her a few seconds to truly understand what Shinichi meant. To him, she wasn't the captain of the Karate Team. She didn't need to build up a wall to show him that she was fine and strong, both physically and mentally. She was simply Mouri Ran, the cry baby Shinichi always mocked about.

And true to her name, she broke down and cried, with Shinichi silently sitting beside her all the time.

* * *

 **The fic _Red_ (Chapter 1) was meant to be a one-shot, but since there were people who put the story as alert (idk why) and also because I wanted to write some simple one-shots about this pairing, I thought why not just changed this fic to a series of one-shots altogether? And here it is. Updates are random and depend on my motivation level, but reviews and prompts are definitely welcomed too :)**


	3. Letter

3: Shinichi would never read his letters twice.

* * *

Shinichi's fan letters were endless.

Throwing them away was a no-no, and Ran reminded him to never do that even if he didn't have the time to read all of them. So whenever he opened his mail box, his storage increased and never decreased. It was lucky his house was big enough to keep all these things somewhere or it would've been a great mess to handle.

Ran helped him most of time. Being independent since young and living in a small apartment was more than enough to train her to be a good _storage-manager,_ not like he dared to say his opinion out if he didn't want a whack from the feather duster. He'd learnt to appreciate her silently instead since he was never good with words. Maybe once he had thought of something better than the word _storage-manager_ , he would tell her one day.

"More mails again."

Shinichi swirled around in his chair, his lips tugged unconsciously at the sight of Ran who was walking through the library door, her hands carrying onto a bunch of mail she'd nicely brought in. She rolled her eyes at him and he deciphered that she'd mistook the reason for his grin, although he decided it would be too awkward to correct her.

He stood up and accepted the letters from her hands, their fingers brushed. "Thanks." It was weird how his heart always skipped a beat whenever that happened; and it _always_ happened. He squashed the unnecessary thoughts like a bug and flipped through the mails. _Fan letter. Fan letter. Dad's. Bills. Fan letter. Fan letter..._

Ran walked over to the shelves and dragged her finger across the spines of the books, skipping around the library in circles to keep herself busy. Shinichi would've asked her to stop distracting him if she'd hadn't beaten him in breaking the short silence between them.

"Do you ever have a letter that you read more than once?" Ran blurted.

He scoffed. "I've barely finished reading all of them, how can that happen?"

She nodded, agreeing. "True."

"Why the question though?" He asked.

"Just curious."

Shinichi thought all of Ran's curious cells were absorbed away by Sonoko (and him, too). Often at the safer side, she was more the type to be worried and suspicious rather than curious. But that didn't matter. He cleared his throat. "Anyway, do you want to grab some lunch?"

"You haven't read your letters." Ran pointed out.

"Later. You're hungry, aren't you?"

"A little." She blushed. "How did you guess that, Sherlock Holmes?"

"I don't need to think to know Mouri Ran doesn't cook lunch on Saturdays."

Ran crossed her arms arguably, but a little smile appeared on her lips soon afterwards. "You've got me."

He grinned back and placed the mails on his desk. "Let's go."

.o.

It was early in the morning of another draggy school day and in the midst of preparing the ingredient for her lunchbox, Ran's phone shrilled through the silent kitchen, almost shocking her more awake than before. Unusual and odd, she stopped her cooking for a moment and wondered who the caller could want from her at this timing. Once she plucked the phone out of her school skirt, her brows furrowed worriedly at the name flashing on the screen.

Shinichi rarely called. It was always the other way round.

"Hello, Shinichi?"

 _"Hey, Ran. I hope I didn't wake you up from your sleep."_

"I'm making bento now." Ran pressed the phone in between her cheek and shoulder to peel the shell off the hard boiled egg. He sounded calm and at ease, so maybe it was just her overthinking? "Do you want me to make yours too?"

He chuckled. _"That's nice. But anyway, I called to ask if you can drop by my house to pick up a new set of school clothes for me."_

"Wait-" She dropped the egg into the bowl and took the phone to better focus on the conversation. "Where are you now?"

There was a ruffling sound. _"I'm at the school's soccer field."_

"Why are you doing at the soccer field so early in the morning?" Ran squinted her eyes at the clock hanging by the refrigerator. "Are you training?"

 _"I lost my wallet and I'm searching for it since last night. Didn't realize the time until I saw the sunlight."_

"What about the lost and found section?" She suggested.

 _"Tried that before. The soccer field is my last hope since I had training yesterday."_

Ran knew the more time she spent talking, the more time she was going to waste for him. Of course, all her ideas were probably thought ages ago. "Then good luck with your search. I'll see you in school later."

 _"Thanks, Ran."_

They cut the call and she began to double the haste in her cooking. If she wanted to reach Shinichi's house, she'd need to make a slight detour. Delay any more time and she would be late for school. Ran packed the two lunchbox into her bag and left another one for her dad on the dining table before sprinting down the stairs to the next street.

The familiar house instantly came into view and Ran didn't waste more time to check his mailbox like she always did whenever she dropped by. She fiddled with the locks and went straight to the stairs and into his bedroom. She flipped through his wardrobe by heart to take out the needed clothes before realizing, _just great_ , that one of the buttons of his shirt was on the verge of dropping out.

She placed all her belongings aside and dashed towards the kitchen to find the sewing kit she'd specially stored near the washing machine for convenience purpose (It was as if she'd treated this place as her home, but well, it was kind of true). There was still some more time to spare if she ran all the way to school, though that didn't mean she could dawdle with her _craft_. But something managed to catch her eyes, something much more important that the shirt and needle in her hand.

Ran blinked and slowly placed the things on top of the washing machine.

Shinichi's black wallet was right there, its corner was poking through the holes of the laundry basket.

It seemed Sherlock Holmes had his own bad days too.

She shook her head and chortled as she bent down to take the wallet, a couple of his T-shirt happened to fell out when she did. But her main concern wasn't that.

Ran flipped the wallet open and browsed through the content. Loose notes. A few coins. Some cards. There wasn't anything she thought was important to spend a whole night on a school week to search for it. And the wallet seemed fairly old too. Aha! Ran finally got an idea for Shinichi's Christmas gift-

 _Wait._

Her fingers happened to brush against a piece of folded paper stuck under a card slot. She raised her eyebrows. That was unexpected. A receipt? No, it looked quite thick to be one. Then what was it?

It wasn't hard to take the paper out despite the thin gap, something to do with the occasional pulling to make the tug smooth. She tucked the wallet under her arm and opened the paper...

Her cheeks bloomed like a rose under the hot sun, burning and extremely red. Ran had to take a moment to glance away to breathe before she could look at the paper- No.

Letter.

It was the letter she'd wrote to him when they were young.

The words were written in different colored inks, with many doodles all over the page as well. The most eye-catching drawing was a picture of a long haired girl and a boy standing next to each other, with a round object that Ran guessed was a cake placed in front of the two children.

 _Happy Birthday Shinichi! I wish you will grow up to become the great Sherlock Holmes! Let's be friends forever! Love, Ran._

A full minute had passed before reality reached her again.

 _This was ages ago- And I don't even remember writing this!_ Ran slowly followed the crease and folded the letter back to how it was before slotting it to its original position. _But Shinichi..._

A smile spread across her cheeks as she kept the wallet quickly into her pocket and dumped the rest of the laundry back into the basket. What was important now was getting to school on time and giving Shinichi his fresh clothes.

She'd save those questions for later.

* * *

 **A/n: *Shakes my head***


End file.
